


healing touch

by redreys



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Agnes' POV, F/F, Literal Sleeping Together, i love them is all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-21 10:22:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30020325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redreys/pseuds/redreys
Summary: When Manuela had first asked Agnes to come to her house and sleep in her bed, Agnes had expected a basement. Something closed off, shut down, drowned in darkness.Instead, Manuela sleeps with the windows open.
Relationships: Manuela Dominguez/Agnes Montague
Comments: 6
Kudos: 17





	healing touch

**Author's Note:**

> brought to you by [this post](https://mxrspider.tumblr.com/post/642935842736865280/) and highly influenced by this [this fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29445645) cause seraf really galaxy brained on this one. rated mature cause there are some references to sex but no sex is involved. hope you like this!

When Manuela had first asked Agnes to come to her house and sleep in her bed, Agnes had expected a basement. Something closed off, shut down, drowned in darkness.

Instead, Manuela sleeps with the windows open. If it weren’t for the black curtains, you could see the moon, shining through the branches of a dying tree.

Agnes has gotten used to this room, but each time she is here she thinks about the open windows.

Something freezing that isn’t quite air pushes deep into her skin, and she closes her eyes and imagines that it must be the sky, marking her slowly, leaving her with invisible tattoos that she can neither see nor show to anyone at all.

The first time they fell asleep together, Manuela told her: _in a better world, cold is to Darkness what heat is to sunlight_. Agnes remembers thinking—is it not true already? In utter darkness, you freeze. It’s colder at night, and it’s always cold inside this room, be it July or December. Hot air never makes it past the curtains. _Winter-wind all year long._

Now that her hands are used to trembling under Manuela’s sheets, she knows that if cold were to Darkness what heat is to sunlight, she couldn’t survive here. She also knows that if heat were to sunlight what Lightless Flame is to Desolation, Manuela couldn’t survive here, either.

It’s a good thing neither of their faith has won yet. It’s good that in spite of all efforts, neither of them is a strong enough vessel of their respective power.

Agnes often consciously tries to be happy for what she _can_ do, for the fact that she can be here at all, but it's not always enough to stop her from wanting more. Curled up on her side, eyes open even though she can’t see anything, Agnes wishes she could be naked.

She has been, before. Not at night, not during the daylight. But at dawn, sometimes. At dusk, when Agnes can only make out the shape of Manuela’s body, and the rest is already shadow.

It hurts, to lay like this in the dark, even with her nightgown shielding her from the wind, but none of it feels like violence. Agnes chooses it. She knocks on the door of Manuela’s house knowing she will be unable to fall asleep, and that she will want Manuela to take off her clothes, and love her, whatever love means to her. To both of them.

She chooses this alien, unfamiliar feeling on her skin, and if she could choose more, she would. If her body could bear any more doubt, she’d pick it.

Slowly, Agnes moves closer to Manuela’s body. Manuela sleeps on her stomach. Unlike Agnes, the cold won’t hurt her, so she isn’t wearing any clothes.

Agnes still can’t see her.

Part of her misses staring at her, trying to read her from the outside, look at life through this stranger’s hands, long hair, deep eyes. There had been others, of course. Manuela wasn’t the only familiar face Agnes liked to pay attention to, though she had often been her favourite. There was something special about her, about this mysterious woman hiding every day in the shadow of the same tree. To Agnes’ perception, she felt empty, inscrutable to the point of weightlessness, as if there was nothing to take away from her soul, no valuable goods to steal.

Agnes has never and will never ask how or when, but Manuela must have noticed her looking, because she walked up to her one day, and just said: _you are Agnes. Agnes Montague._

Manuela was wearing a black v-neck shirt that evening. Agnes remembers the exact shape of it. She remembers staring at her skin, and her necklace, and her firm expression, and not knowing how to reply. Yes, she was Agnes. Agnes Montague. And then what? Was she supposed to be anything else?

There had been a pause before Manuela added her own name, as a way of introduction. As bridge between absence and destruction. Another useless identifier that Agnes was going to whisper in the dark one day, trying to make sense of her pleasure.

A part of Agnes misses staring at Manuela, but the rest of her knows there are other, better means to reach her.

It still feels strange, to convince her mind that she has this. Agnes has spent a lifetime posing as an answer to someone else’s question, and when she dared to dream of relief, she dreamt of _other_. She dreamt of someone else telling her something new, letting her ask without reaching a fixed solution. With Manuela, there’s not much research. They don’t talk for long, they won’t talk forever.

But _this,_ this that they have here, together—it’s a flawed, undefined answer to a flawed, undefined question.

Manuela once said to her: _I can’t believe in my faith and in your destiny at the same time. I can’t call both of them natural._ Maybe, it should have hurt. Maybe, it should have wedged a hole between them, wide enough to kill their relationship dead. But all Agnes could hear, all she could discern past Manuela’s words about nature and science and life, was that Agnes must be natural beyond her destiny. Otherwise, Manuela would never have agreed to let her sleep beside her. There’s a shine in her eyes when she speaks about Darkness, and the same spark of light is there when she says Agnes’ name.

Manuela’s refusal to write down the rules has been enough to bend them, every time. If it’s true for the sun, it’s true for Agnes, too.

For a moment, Agnes feels almost guilty, because maybe Manuela wouldn’t put it in those terms, but she calms herself down quickly. It’s alright that they’d say it differently. They believe in different things.

Out of instinct, mostly because she can, Agnes turns more directly to Manuela’s body, and reaches out with her gloveless hand.

She moves carefully, then stops short of her lower back. Her fingers twitch, warm and impatient, unprepared to the feeling, even after all this time, and then she lays them down against Manuela’s skin.

The sensation is always abrupt, like walking a staircase with your eyes closed and missing the last step. There _should_ be something there, something to burn, but instead there’s only the feeling of solid absence. A long-lost secret, obscure and closed off, but solid enough to take the weight of Agnes’ hand.

If she lets her mind wander off, it seems unreal. Like she isn’t touching her, after all, and she is supposed to dig harder, until she gets to her heart, to a single solid anchor, valuable enough to be vulnerable, to be broken.

But Agnes is concentrating, so there’s no need for that. She keeps the Desolation cornered, forgets it by acknowledging it. She lets it go even though she can’t, keeps herself still on the line and pretends this is what peace looks like.

Agnes knows she is touching Manuela. It’s the whole point.

After maybe a minute, Manuela moves, no doubt feeling the warmth of Agnes’ skin.

Had this happened a month ago, Agnes would have felt the need to ask _is this okay? are you alright?_ , to question the luxury of gently reaching for a partner in the dead of night. By now, she knows that Manuela welcomes the gesture. She has told- no, _asked_ her before, to please reach out for as long as it feels comfortable.

“Thank you,” Manuela whispers, in quiet confirmation, and if Agnes knew how to laugh, she would. Not because it’s funny, but because it still takes her emotions by surprise.

Agnes can’t keep her hand there forever, of course. At some point it’ll start to burn.

That’s why she needs to be careful now, though. That’s why she moves it upwards, tracing Manuela’s spine, curling up at the base of her neck. That’s why when Manuela breathes through her caress, Agnes brings it down again, and opens it slowly against her skin.

For just a moment, Agnes thinks she can feel the wind pushing in between her palm and Manuela’s back, trying to separate them. Her knee-jerk response is to push even deeper.

Instead, Agnes closes her eyes. She stays exactly where she is.

**Author's Note:**

> is the fact that agnes is able to touch manuela cause of dark on desolation fuckery unrealistic? who knows. please join me in looking away. also i think it's cool to imagine that even people from the church couldn't touch her without getting hurt sometimes, but here comes this milf from the dark who Somehow can. fuck you lightless flame 
> 
> i might make this chaptered and add other similarly short moments between them if i feel like it, but no promises. also, comments are as always appreciated, and you can find me on tumblr as [mxrspider](https://mxrspider.tumblr.com/) <3


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